Singing in Cars

Before there were radios in cars
We sang
Kid heels on windows
Like garlic buds
Past orchards with ladders
And lungs splayed on tree shoulders
We wandered our side of the globe
Tiny firemen in Red Ball Keds
Angular fence birds in overalls
Who wouldn’t believe a calendar
That picked pockets like a conspirator?

Past the concrete dinosaurs
Past the tongue depressor river
Heavy with cancer that gave no report
Under the gruff clouds
One dish of flung out life
The doctor couldn’t cure
With a dark slap
Born songbirds all
In a sheet metal schooner